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The Loletta M. Orr Postdoctoral Student Writing Competition

DOJ Overreach: The Criminalization of Physicians

, MD, CIPP/US
 

Notes

1 See generally Cathleen London, Predicting Drug Diversion: The Use of Data Analytics in Prescription Drug Monitoring (2021), https://wpsites.maine.edu/mlipa/2021/11/15/predicting-drug-diversion-the-use-of-data-analytics-in-prescription-drug-monitoring/.

2 Id.

3 Id.

4 The DEA through the CSA has a closed chain for controlled substance distribution. They monitor legal products as they are transferred among DEA registrants. Databases of every sale, delivery, and disposal are kept in ARCOS (Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System).

5 M. Hopp et al., The Socioeconomic Costs of the Undertreatment of Pain, 17 Value Health (2014), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2014.08.400.

6 Diane E. Hoffman, Treating Pain v. Reducing Drug Diversion and Abuse: Recalibrating the Balance in Our Drug Control Laws and Policies, 1 St. Louis j. health L. & pol’y 231, 257 (2008).

7 Id.

8 Linder v. United States, 263 U.S. 695.

9 U.S. v. Moore, 423 U.S. 122, 122 (1975).

10 Ronald Libby, Treating Doctors as Drug Dealers: The DEA’s War on Prescription Painkillers, 545 Pol’y Anal. 4 (2005).

11 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whats-a-pill-mill/ (last accessed October 12, 2021). See also K. K. Rigg et al., Prescription Drug Abuse & Diversion: Role of the Pain Clinic, 40 J. Drug Issues 681-702 (2010).

12 Id.

14 Id.

16 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/us/01drugs.html (last accessed October 13, 2021).

17 Id.

19 Id.

20 Id.

21 The guidelines have had much criticism by many groups including the American Medical Association: https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-urges-cdc-revise-opioid-prescribing-guideline. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also cautioned against misapplication: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/s0424-advises-misapplication-guideline-prescribing-opioids.html (last accessed December 16, 2021).

24 Megan Hadley, Are Pain Doctors Wrongly Taking the Blame for the Opioid Crisis, Crime Rep. (December 12, 2018), https://thecrimereport.org/2018/12/12/are-pain-doctors-wrongly-taking-the-blame-for-the-opioid-crisis/.

25 Libby, supra note 10, at 13.

26 Id.

27 Id.

28 London, supra note 1.

29 See generally Benjamin Barron, Strategies for Investigators and Prosecutors in Prescription Drug Diversion Cases, U.S. Att’ys Bull. (September 2016).

30 Jeffrey Singer et al., Today’s Nonmedical Opioid Users Are Not Yesterday’s Patients; Implications of Data Indicating Stable Rates of Nonmedical Use and Pain Reliever Use Disorder, 12 J. Pain Res. 617-20 (2019).

31 Michael Barnes, A More Sensible Surge: Ending DOJ’s Indiscriminate Raids of Healthcare Providers, 8 Legis. Pol’y Brief 3 (2019).

32 Id. at 15.

33 Hadley, supra note 24.

34 London, supra note 1.

35 Harvey Silverglate, When Treating Pain Brings a Criminal Indictment, Wall St. J. (June 12, 2015).

36 Id.

37 Libby, supra note 10.

38 Id.

39 Id.

40 Silverglate, supra note 35.

41 Congressional Research Service, Heroin Trafficking in the United States, February 14, 2019, https://crsreports.congress.gov

42 Id.

43 Jeffrey Singer, Dopesick Resurrects an Opioid Narrative That Is “Neat, Plausible, and Wrong” (2021), https://reason.com/2021/10/27/dopesick-resurrects-an-opioid-narrative-that-is-neat-plausible-and-wrong.

44 Id.

45 Nora Volkow & Thomas McLellan, Opioid Abuse in Chronic Pain—Misconceptions and Mitigation Strategies, 374 N. Engl. J. Med. 1253-63 (2016).

46 Id.

47 Hawre Jalal et al., Changing Dynamics of the Drug Overdose Epidemic in the United States from 1979 through 2016, 361 Science (2018), https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau1184.

48 Id.

49 Christopher Brown, DOJ Keeps Up Pressure on Doctors Who Prescribe Opioids Illegally (2020), https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/doj-keeps-up-pressure-on-doctors-who-prescribe-opioids-illegally.

50 Transcript of sentencing proceedings, United States v. Steven Henson, MD, U.S. Dist. Ct. Kans., Case 16-10018-01.

51 Hadley, supra note 24.

52 The Healthcare Fraud Prevention Partnership.

53 London, supra note 1.

54 Maia Szalavitz, The Feds Are Raiding the Offices of Doctors Who Prescribe Addiction Medication (2018), https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xevwb/dea-raids-addiction-doctors.

55 Id.

56 United States v. Bothra et al., U.S. Dist. Ct. E. Dist., Mich. S. Dist., Dec. 4, 2018. Case 2:18-cr-20800.

57 Id.

58 Szalavitz, supra note 54.

59 Walter F. Wrenn III, MD, pers. comm.

60 Barron supra note 29.

61 Id.

63 Cara Sedney et al., The DEA Would Come In and Destroy You: A Qualitative Study of Fear and Unintended Consequences of Fear and Unintended Consequences Emerging from Restrictive Opioid Prescribing Policies in West Virginia (2021), https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-991531/v1

64 Id.

65 Julia MacDonald, “Do No Harm or Injustice to Them”: Indicting and Convicting Physicians for Controlled Substance Distribution in the Age of the Opioid Crisis, 72 Maine Law Rev (2020).

66 Ruan v. United States, 20-1410, cert granted November 5, 2021, consolidated with 21-5261.

67 Kahn v. United States, 21-5261, cert granted November 5, 2021, consolidated with 20-1410.

68 Dr. Gitlow, pers. comm.

69 Barnes, supra note 31.

70 Dr. Reach, pers. comm.

71 Barnes, supra note 31.

72 Id.

73 Zachary Siegel, Give People Safe Drugs, New Republic (November 24, 2021).

74 Jeffrey Singer et al., Today’s Nonmedical Opioid Users Are Not Yesterday’s Patients; Implications of Data Indicating Stable Rates of Nonmedical Use and Pain Reliever Use Disorder, 12 J. Pain Res. 617-20 (2019).

75 Id.

76 Leo Beletsky & Jeremiah Goulka, The Federal Agency That Fuels the Opioid Crisis, N.Y. Times (September 17, 2018), www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/opinion/drugs-dea-defund-heroin.html.

77 Zachary Siegel, The Opioid Crisis Is about More Than Corporate Greed, New Republic (2019), https://newrepublic.com/article/154560/opioid-crisis-corporate-greed

78 Id.

79 Beletsky & Goulka, supra note 76.

80 Id.

81 Id.

82 Bennett Allen et al., Public Health and Police: Building Ethical and Equitable Opioid Responses, 118 Proc. Nat’l. Acad. Sci. (2021), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118235118.

83 Id.

84 Id.

85 Current climate encourages abandoning patients leave people to suffer. N. Dasgupta et al., Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix to Its Social and Economic Determinants, 108 Am. J. Public Health 182-86 (2018).

86 Harvey Slade, Case Study Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Setting the Record Straight, www.wcmt.org.uk/fellows/reports/drug-use-health-issue-learning-portuguese-policies.

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